Questions Arise Over Yahoo! Boss' Programming Chops

Taylor Buley
, ContributorNews developer, in all senses of the phraseOpinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

An investment firm named Third Point LLC is going public with its questions over whether
Yahoo! CEO Scott Thompson "embellished his academic credentials."

Thompson reportedly claims earning a degree in Computer Science but Third Point seems to believe it has found evidence of the contrary:

A rudimentary Google search reveals a Stonehill College alumni announcement stating that Mr. Thompson's degree is in accounting only. That announcement is consistent with other documents (including filings with the SEC) that reflect Mr. Thompson received a degree in accounting, but not computer science.

Upon recognizing this discrepancy, Third Point initially assumed that the documents we had reviewed were incorrect and the representations in Yahoo!'s public filings were accurate. However, we were then informed by Stonehill College that Mr. Thompson did indeed graduate with a degree in accounting only. Furthermore, Stonehill College informed us that it did not begin awarding computer science degrees until 1983 -- four years after Mr. Thompson graduated. We inquired whether Mr. Thompson had taken a large number of computer science courses, perhaps allowing him to justify to himself that he had "earned" such a degree. Instead, we learned that during Mr. Thompson's tenure at Stonehill only one such course was even offered - Intro to Computer Science. Presumably, Mr. Thompson took that course.